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Petroleum / Mining in Madagascar

  • Africa rejects Europe's 'dirty diesel'

    BOTSWANA, 2017/05/04 Ghana and Nigeria are the first countries to respond to reports of European companies exploiting weak fuel standards in Africa. Stricter limits on the sulfur content of diesel will come into force on July 1. Governments in West Africa are taking action to stop the import of fuel with dangerously high levels of sulfur and other toxins. Much of the so-called "dirty diesel" originates in Europe, according to a report published by Public Eye, a Swiss NGO, last year. The report exposed what Public Eye calls the "illegitimate business" of European oil companies and commodities traders selling low quality fuel to Africa. While European standards prohibit the use of diesel with a sulfur content higher than 10 parts per million (ppm), diesel with as much as 3,000 ppm is regularly exported to Africa.

  • UK blocks Madagascar farmer who says mining firm ousted him from land

    MADAGASCAR, 2017/04/15 A Malagasy farmer who says he and his neighbours have lost access to their land because of the UK mining company Rio Tinto has been blocked from visiting London, where he had been due to address the firm’s annual general conference. Athanase Monja planned to speak at the firm’s AGM on 12 April, but was refused a visa by the Home Office. Monja, a subsistence farmer, fisherman and initial assistant to the mayor in his town of Antsontso, was told by British officials he had a “lack of qualification” to speak about environmental and human rights concerns.

  • Beyond Commodities: How African Multinationals Are Transforming

    BOTSWANA, 2016/05/11 Oil, gold, diamonds, palm oil, cocoa, timber: raw materials have long been linked to Africa in a lot of businesspeople’s minds. And in fact the continent is highly dependent on commodities: they constitute as much as 95% of some nations’ export revenues, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. But propping a country’s entire economy on commodities is risky business, like building a mountainside home on stilts. You can’t be sure about the weather, or in this case the commodities market. The current free-fall of oil prices to less than $40 a barrel is a glaring example. “The commodities cycle has tanked out,” says Austin Okere, founder of Computer Warehouse Group (CWG), a Nigerian emerging multinational financial services company. “And this time it looks additional structural than cyclical, so it’s not a matter of waiting it out. Something has to give.”

  • Sherritt’s Madagascar unit says new tax rules prevent nickel shipments

    MADAGASCAR, 2016/04/16 The Madagascan arm of Sherritt International said on Thursday containers carrying nickel had been prevented from leaving the island’s Toamasina port due to new regulations, and unless the situation changed the mine could only remain open for a week. The $7-billion Ambatovy mining project, 40 % owned and operated by Sherritt, has been hit by record low nickel prices and management has been forced to lay off additional than 1,000 of its work force over the completed year.

  • Madagascar: Mining and energy laws

    MADAGASCAR, 2013/06/20 The interim government has proposed that national elections be postponed from 24 July to 23 August 2013, following an application by the military and reconciliation council. The delay is most probably due to the rejection of the presidential candidacies of Andry Rajoelina (president of the High Authority of Transition), Lalao Ravalomanana (wife of ousted President Marc Ravalomanana) and Didier Ratsiraka (an extra former president), by the African Union, the regional Southern African Development Community and a number of foreign governments, inclunding France.

  • Global gas consumption to increase by 4% in 2013

    BOTSWANA, 2012/12/25 World gas request is projected to reach 3,460.7 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2013, constituting an increase of 3.6% from 3,341.4 bcm in 2012. North America's gas consumption is estimate to reach 890.3 bcm in 2013, equivalent to 25.7% of world request. It would be followed by Asia & Australia with 720.8 bcm (20.8%), Eastern Europe & the Commonwealth of Independent States with 587.4 bcm (17%), Western Europe with 533 bcm (15.4%), the Middle East with 445.7 bcm (12.9%),

  • People from across the country rushed to search for the stones 2012-04-06

    MADAGASCAR, 2012/04/06 At 7:00 am, it's already getting hot in Ilakaka's dusty market, where a woman empties a plastic vitamin bottle that is filled not with pills, but with dozens of tiny sapphires. These stones once supplied half the world sapphire market, but political upheaval and a lack of investment have brought tough times to the world's major known reserve.
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